Fig. 158.—Cone. Sapphirine chalcedony.[330]
It is when they grow old that both nations and individuals turn their attention to ease and comfort. The Chaldees were long contented with the cylinder, although, as a seal, it was a very imperfect contrivance. The ancient monarchy never seems to have made use of flat signets. The impression of one has been sought for in vain on those contracts of the time of Hammourabi, where so many cylinders have left their mark. The oldest document on which the trace of a circular seal has been recognized belongs to the northern kingdom, and dates from the reign of Bin-Nirari, who occupied the throne of Assyria towards the end of the ninth century B.C. From this moment the use of the cone becomes rapidly common. Under the Sargonids, and still more during the second Chaldee monarchy and under the Achæmenids, it superseded the cylinder. The dates inscribed on the tablets prove their age; the space on the cones themselves was too narrow, as a rule, for a legend. On a few specimens we find one or two characters engraved, generally a divine monogram or the traditional emblems of the sidereal powers. A few cones have inscriptions in Aramaic characters (see Fig. 157); on the example figured we again encounter the strange composite beast we have already seen upon a stone tablet and a cylinder (Figs. 87 and 141). In spite of the alphabet employed, this cone must have been engraved either in Nineveh or its neighbourhood.
The narrowness of the field explains the want of variety in the subjects. In a small circle like this there was no room for more than a single figure with a few accessories, or, at most, for two figures. We cannot expect to find scenes as varied and complicated as those upon the cylinders. A very small number of the simplest themes formed the stock-in-trade of the engraver.
There are about four hundred specimens in the British Museum, and as many more in Paris, in the Louvre and the Cabinet des Antiques. In the presence of them all we can only confess to a feeling of embarrassment. They are never arranged in chronological order; Assyrian intaglios are mixed up with those from Chaldæa, from Phœnicia and Persia. Certain types were reproduced and copied in this region even as late as the Arsacids and Sassanids. We shall choose a few, however, which we may with some certainty attribute to Assyria. There is in the first place one on which two winged figures seem to be adorning the sacred tree (Fig. 158). We find the impression of an almost exactly similar cone on a contract dated 650 B.C. The only differences lie in the more careful execution of the latter seal and in the substitution of the radiant disk of the sun for the crescent moon.[331] In another impression we find the radiant disk changed into the winged globe.[332] The shape and fringe of the Assyrian robe may be recognized in the intaglio in which a man with long hair and beard does homage to a winged genius (Fig. 159). The worshipper is standing, but behind him appears a kneeling figure. This posture is rare, but it is met with in a few instances on monuments from this period, and is always used to suggest the profound respect with which a man does obeisance either to his god or his king.[333]
We need not hesitate to ascribe to the second Chaldæan monarchy a cone with a bearded individual standing before an altar on which lies a fantastic animal (Fig. 160); above his head appear the sun, the moon, and a star. We have already mentioned two examples of this theme, which begins to appear in the time of Nebuchadnezzar and remains in fashion until the Macedonian conquest.[334]
Fig. 159.—Amethyst cone. National Library, Paris.[335]
Fig. 160.—Agate cone. National Library, Paris.[336]
Among the themes in most frequent use under the Sargonids we might have quoted the single combat of the king with a lion, the god standing upon a lion’s back, the king over whose head a servant holds an umbrella, the heads and bodies of different animals, and others.[337] We cannot pretend, however, to enumerate them all. It is sufficient to show, as we have done, that after the ninth century at latest both cylinders and cones were produced in the same workshops, and that the differences in their figuration are to be explained by the dimensions and form of the new surface. Those who have supposed that the use of flat seals only commenced under the Achæmenids are mistaken. All that we can say with truth is that intaglios cut upon sections of cones, spheres and pyramids are less ancient than the cylinders of Ur, Erech, Accad and Sippara.